Re: An interesting idea?!

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

On Fri, Sep 27, 2002 at 04:45:05AM +1000, Malcolm Tredinnick wrote:
> 
> Now, here's the reason this might not work: developer's may resist the
> idea implicitly on the grounds that they do not have time to consider the
> bug in depth. If they did have time, they would just fix it.

I think you've just provided the best argument here for why this wouldn't
work.

Imagine that it takes time N to actually fix a bug, and adding the sort of
information you're talking about takes some fraction of that, let's say N/5
for purposes of argument. That means that for every five bugs we add this info
two, one bug would have been actually fixed. (I've no idea whether 5 is right,
but it really doesn't matter.)

The question is whether the net benefit, by attracting new hackers to work on
bugs that are more thoroughly documented this way, would offset the above
described costs. I just doubt it.

Cheers,
John